HOWARDS GROVE - Blake Pedrin hit the shot of a lifetime Saturday night in the Big East Conference championship game.

Pedrin’s long, running two-pointer as time expired gave the Howards Grove boys basketball team a 48-46 win over Sheboygan Lutheran.

Crusaders coach Nick Verhagen, though, isn’t so sure the shot should have counted.

A photo taken of the shot suggests Pedrin didn’t get the ball out of his hands in time. Verhagen insists there’s even more than that.

“The shot going off after the clock was secondary to the malfunction by the scorers' table, which started the clock a second or two after it should have,” Verhagen said.

Howards Grove coach Wade Georgeff tried to watch his own film of the play but the crucial sequence wasn’t recorded.

“Our guy didn’t get it. He watched with his eyes and not the camera,” Georgeff said.

Georgeff prefers to trust his player, who insists he got it off in time.

“I know Blake is a very smart player and aware of the time,” Georgeff said. "He said he shot it with .4 or .5 left, so I’m going to take him at his word."

A since-deleted Twitter post shows Howards Grove's Blake Pedrin may not have gotten off his game-winning shot against Sheboygan Lutheran in the Big East championship game before time ran out.(Photo: Photo courtesy Curt Hogg, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Sheboygan Lutheran’s Graden Grabowski was fouled with 4.8 seconds left with Howards Grove leading 46-45.

Grabowski made the first of his two free throws before missing the second, at which point teammate Jacob Ognacevic rebounded the ball and put up an airball.

Pedrin caught the errant shot, dribbled down the court and made the game-winning shot.

Georgeff thinks Sheboygan Lutheran could have prevented Pedrin from being in position to make the shot.

“There were opportunities (for Lutheran) to not let it get to that point,” Georgeff said. “How do you leave three team fouls? How does Blake get past halfcourt without being fouled?”

Instead of focusing on whether Pedrin’s basket should have counted or on missed opportunities, Verhagen gave credit to the Tigers.

“Tip your hats off to Howards Grove," he said. "The shot went in after the buzzer, but he still hit the shot. We’ll be stronger as a team because of it.”

Still, it’s not how either coach wished the game would have ended.

“It’s unfortunate such a great competitive high school basketball game ended in controversy,” Verhagen said.

“Shame there had to be any controversy because every kid on that court played their butts off," Georgeff said.